Original art used with permission of Solomon Enos. Flyer design: Kanaiʻa Design

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Nets for Snaring the Sun: Speculative 

Work from Hawaiʻi and the Pacific

 

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Call for Submissions

When people think of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres, the Pacific is not the first setting that comes to mind. Pacific peoples are not the ones envisioned going boldly into the future or heroically slaying the evil wizard. When the Pacific has appeared in science fiction or fantasy, it is most often unpeopled, the setting for other people’s stories, the backdrop for other people’s heroics.

Outsiders writing our stories for us is a tired plot of the past.  The visionary plot of our future is writing our own stories. In the last century, the people of this region have too often been the victims of what seems like science fiction plots: nuclear testing without regard for the human consequences, pirating the genetic material of our bodies and natural resources, extracting minerals and profit from the land and undersea, Western concepts of science triumphing over sacredness, abusive colonies of prisoners sent from other places, militarization of our homes, the ocean rising to swallow us. Yet these plots have never overwhelmed our stories. We are strong. We are resilient. We are hopeful.

This desire, to read these stories of the future, has prompted us to invite you to write with us for Nets for Snaring the Sun: Speculative Work from Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, a new anthology seeking submissions in speculative literature. We are calling for pieces located in the Pacific that construct complex characterizations of Pacific cultures and peoples living with imaginative future technologies, steampunk settings, or fantasy narratives to name but a few examples.

This anthology of speculative fiction from and of the Pacific couldn’t come at a better time, because our activism and our movements are no longer exclusive to addressing oppressions of the past; we are now trying to imagine something different than what has been imagined for us. We are no longer talking back to empire; we are trying to imagine beyond it.

Guidelines:

All submissions should be sent as an MS Word document to hehiale@gmail.com by January 31, 2017.

Poetry:

• maximum 4 pages per poem (However, we are open for query, if you’re interested in submitting a longer piece.)
• maximum of 4 poems per submission submitted as individual MS Word files
• submissions must be previously unpublished in English
• We are accepting translated submissions. We are also open to accepting pieces translated into English with the texts written in the original language.

Fiction :

• 57-7,000 words maximum
• 1 story per submission (We will accept the submission of additional stories, if yours is rejected, and you are able to resubmit prior to the deadline.)
• submissions must be previously unpublished in English
• We are accepting translated submissions. We are also open to accepting pieces translated into English with the texts written in the original language.

What We Want and What We Don’t Want

We want good speculative works engaging narratives of the Pacific.

Some things we love:

• Fiction and poetry from or about diverse perspectives and traditionally under-represented groups, settings, and cultures, written from a non-exoticizing and well-researched position.
• Unusual yet readable styles and inventive structures and narratives.
• Stories that address political issues in complex and nuanced ways, resisting oversimplification.

Acceptable creative choices:

• Profanity is acceptable.
• Sex or violence in a story, if artistically justified, is acceptable.
• Commonwealth spellings are acceptable.
• We welcome all sub genres and forms of speculative fiction.

Things we won’t consider:

• non-speculative horror or romance
• excessive gore
• erotica
• elves
  

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